Chris Gorog

William Christopher “Chris” Gorog is an entertainment and technology executive that has served in senior leadership positions in Hollywood and Silicon Valley,[1] including as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Napster,[2] a top digital music brand,[3] and Roxio.

Gorog played a central role in efforts to monetize digital music downloads and streams. He oversaw Roxio's conversion to a digital music subscription and download service through the acquisitions of Pressplay and Napster. Gorog was a key ally of the record labels in the digital music market but was also a vocal critic of the licensing terms and DRM restrictions that labels imposed on digital music services.[4]

Gorog began his entertainment career as a business affairs executive at The Walt Disney Company,[5] continued his work in film and television as CEO of ITC Entertainment,[6] moved to Universal Studios as Executive Vice President of Group Operations for the Recreation Group,[7] and then on to CEO positions with Roxio[8] and Napster[9] as the entertainment business converged with new technologies.

Gorog was born in Fontainebleau France, raised in Dayton Ohio and graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A.S. in Tele-Communications and Film.[10] Gorog comes from an entrepreneurial family.[11] His father, William F. Gorog, was co-founder and Chief Executive of Data Corp, which created LexisNexis.[12]

After ten years of developing Napster, Chris Gorog stepped down[13] in January 2010 and started gorog.net to serve as a foundation to explore new opportunities in entertainment, media and technology.

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Gorog led the acquisition of Napster, the peer-to-peer network that made music downloading a phenomenon,[14] in 2002. He re-launched the pioneer digital music brand as a legal music provider in 2003,[15] which became a public company in 2004.[16] Under Mr. Gorog’s leadership as Chairman and CEO of Napster,[17] the company assembled one of the largest digital music catalogs in the world[18] and expanded its global presence by offering its service in the U.K,[19] Germany[20] and Japan.[21] Napster created a number of digital music product innovations under Mr. Gorog’s management, including the introduction of portable subscriptions,[22] a free advertising supported version of Napster,[23] as well as a variety of mobile music offerings.[24]

Gorog also oversaw the development of a number of advertising campaigns for the company,[25] including “Its Coming Back,” Napster’s re-launch campaign featuring a series of original animations[26][27] that received both the Cannes Lion Award[28] and the Silver Effie.[29] Napster was also awarded Billboard magazine’s “Best Digital Music Community”[30] award for its U.S. music service.

Best Buy acquired Napster in 2008, and Gorog served as Napster’s Chief Executive Officer until January 6, 2010.[31]

As Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Roxio,[32] Gorog led the company’s successful spin-off from Adaptec, took the company public in May 2001 and drove the creation of the Roxio consumer brand.[14] Roxio became the leader in CD burning software, with 70% market share led by its brands Easy CD Creator and Toast.[1] In January 2002, Gorog led Roxio’s acquisition of MGI Software that expanded the company’s portfolio to include photo and video editing software, as well as the top-selling system-recovery software for crash and virus recovery.[33]

In December 2002, Gorog led Roxio’s acquisition of Napster[14] – and followed with an acquisition of Universal Music’s and Sony’s Pressplay in May 2003,[34] which served as the new technology platform for the company’s release of Napster 2.0, the revitalized legal version of the original Napster.[15] In August 2004, Roxio sold the software business in order to focus entirely on developing the Napster digital music business.[35] The company officially changed its corporate name from Roxio (NASDAQ: ROXI) to Napster (NASDAQ: NAPS) in January 2005.[36]

Prior to Gorog’s technology positions, he served in a variety of senior capacities in the entertainment business including Executive Vice President of Universal Studios Recreation Group where he helped manage Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal Studios Florida and Universal’s multi-billion dollar theme park expansion in Florida and Japan.[37] Gorog later served as President of New Business Development for Universal Studios Recreation Group. Prior to Universal, Gorog served as President and CEO of ITC Entertainment[5] and as Vice President Business Affairs Motion Pictures and Television for The Walt Disney Company.[5]

Gorog has served as a director on a variety of entertainment and technology boards, including House of Blues,[5]Guitar Center[38] and Critical Path,[39] in addition to serving on the boards of Roxio and Napster as its Chairman.[40] He also has served on the board of directors of NARM, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers.